Despite a recent massacre April 2 at Garissa University College in Garissa, Kenya, that left 147 dead, the UF in Kenya study-abroad program is mostly concerned with buffalo sightings.
Safety is taken seriously, said Todd Palmer, the faculty program director for the UF in Kenya study-abroad trip.
Because the nine students studying abroad will be living in the rural Laikipia plateau, the area is less likely to be a target for human violence.
The Laikipia plateau is a landscape for wildlife, not a major city.
“We drill people on how to respond to the presence of wild animals,” Palmer said.
Palmer has been leading trips to Kenya for university students since 2001 and with UF students since 2009.
“Everyone stays close in tents,” Palmer said. “We spend the first couple days making sure everyone understands how to stay safe and healthy in the bush.”
While wildlife on the Laikipia plateau where the students study can include lions, cheetahs and leopards, they aren’t the cause for the trip’s safety concerns — buffalo and elephants are, Palmer said.
Jessica Gunson, a UF biology junior and Palmer’s teaching assistant, said male buffalo get more aggressive as they get older.
However, the living quarters are further secured by an electric fence that surrounds the camp, she said.
Askari soldiers also protect the group all day.
“Those are local tribesmen and they stay with us 24/7,” Gunson, 21, said.
Gunson went on the trip last year as a student and is returning to this summer as a teaching assistant within the study-abroad program.
“Kenya just kind of feels like home, so it was something I wanted to go back to,” Gunson said.
Palmer didn’t always want to study in Africa.
He started out studying biology on the pre-med track while in college, but he changed his focus from pre-med to zoology after going to Kenya on a study-abroad trip himself.
He said he hopes students gain an appreciation for the planet’s biodiversity and Kenya’s culture.
Gunson said there are some misconceptions about Kenya.
“The real concern is the wildlife and not the political situation, as I think a lot of people believe it is,” Gunson said.
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 4/21/2015]
